Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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Something can and must be done

You may or may not have heard (it was not exactly widely reported in the MSM) that white 13-year-old Allen Coon in Kansas City was recently set on fire by two older black boys who followed him home from school. Though it takes a virtual Sherlock Holmes to piece together the information from choppy, reticent, and downright misleading local news accounts, it appears that the attackers said, "You get what you deserve, white boy" while attempting to immolate him using gasoline and a match. The boy stifled the fire rapidly with his shirt, called 911 himself, and hopefully will not suffer the loss of his eyesight or other permanent injury.

The police have (surprise, surprise) decided not to treat this as a hate crime.

Now further information emerges: Allen's mother reports that Allen was regularly targeted for race-baiting at his school, not only by fellow students but also by a teacher, Carla Kinder, who used racial epithets toward him and encouraged the students to do the same.

Other times, the students would initiate the harassment, and the teachers would pick up the baton.

And Mrs. Coon reports that teacher Karla Dorsey, who is black, dismissed Allen's attempt to answer a question about black history month saying, "What would you know about it? You're not our race."

Nor is this sort of thing being reported by Allen's family alone. Other families of the very few white students in the school report similar incidents.

One day, [teacher Veda] Monday allegedly showed an explicit film involving portrayals of whites lynching blacks and then, reports ex-Texan Wildeisen, "in front of the class attacked my daughters, telling them that 'everybody from Texas is ignorant rednecks'" and that all white people were "responsible for Jasper because [their] skin is white." This reference is to an atrocity in Jasper, TX, in which three white men murdered a black man in 1998.

Another white victim is 15-year-old Ashley Miller, whose family had moved to K.C., MO, from Kansas. Subject to racial harassment, she was called names such as "white b****." She also actually shared a class with Allen Coon, and as the only two white students in the room, they became the target of sexual comments. Moreover, she reports the same experience with race-baiting videos as do the Wildeisens: they would be shown, and an onus would be placed on the white students. Her mother Melissa told me that she now fears for her daughter's safety and, you guessed it, is in the process of withdrawing Ashley from East High. And the rest of the pattern is holding, too: the Millers are contemplating leaving the area.

Talk to the principal? You've got to be kidding. No help there:

Melissa Coon had been complaining to the school's administration about her son's harassment repeatedly -- only to be ignored and stonewalled -- repeatedly. At one point an administrator told her that her son could have a transfer only to another district school but said that Allen would have "more problems there" and that he should stay at more "racially diverse" East High (which has no more than 20 white students). At another, a vice principal Coon identifies as Ms. Jessica Bassett denied, while shaking and rubbing her hands together nervously, ever having heard about Allen's problems even though they had been brought to her attention on at least five occasions.

Now, you may ask, why am I blogging about this story?

Well, first of all, this is news. This is serious stuff, newsworthy in itself, and it's something people need to know about. If something similar happened to a black 13-year-old, no one would ask reporters and bloggers why they were blogging about it, whether we need to think about such terrible things, whether we aren't just making matters worse by talking about them.

Second, every time you hear someone talk with pretentious finger-wagging about "white flight," just tell him the story of Allen Coon. It is extremely important that parents not put their children into this sort of danger. The parents in this story who are taking their children out of East High and attempting to leave the area are absolutely doing the right thing. White flight is not wrong. Parents who deliberately send their children to schools where their physical well-being is endangered by racist students are at best irresponsible and at worst ideologues sacrificing their children on a political altar.

Yet such parents are praised. I still recall listening with probably ill-disguised horror nearly twenty years ago as an acquaintance proudly related the fact that his father had sent his sisters (!) to an all-black school in the 1960's where they got beaten up, because his father thought this was the right thing to do. My acquaintance didn't blanch for a moment. He never said, "But then my father changed his mind." Not at all. His father was a hero to him for sending his daughters to get beaten up as a sign of solidarity with the civil rights movement. That's just wrong.

And on the other side, parents who rightly flee such situations and take their children away safely are demonized as somehow responsible for the breakdown of the cities. Baloney. You aren't responsible to set your child up as some kind of bizarre hostage for the betterment of the cities. Just don't do it. Get out if you can. Don't let your child be another Allen Coon.

Third, the behavior of the teachers and administrators at East High is, to put it mildly, utterly unacceptable and beyond the pale. It is hardly going out on a limb to make a connection between the attempted immolation of Allen and their expressly, gleefully, unabashedly racist attitudes and behavior, in which they openly encouraged other students. They are teaching the black students to hate white people and are labeling white students in class as responsible in virtue of their race for past mistreatment of black people. At this point it almost sounds feeble even to ask what would happen were races reversed but behavior the same.

(Slight digression: Similar evidence that racist teaching is encouraging attacks on whites comes from the case of Shane McClellan, who was beaten for several hours in 2010 by a black attacker and an Asian attacker who, he claimed, "brought up slavery" and said "this is for what your people did to our people" and "the white man has kept us down" during the ordeal. The police, who originally did not arrest the pair even after finding them with the victim's blood literally on their hands, did eventually manage to charge them with a hate crime. I am not linking the story, because the picture of the victim in the hospital after the attack is unnecessarily graphic.)

Now, it would be easy to throw up one's hands. Whatcha' gonna' do? These teachers are obviously racists and the administrators are either racists as well or don't care. How is outrage from outside Kansas City going to change that?

But here I want to ask: Were the situation reversed, would people take such a fatalistic attitude? No, they wouldn't. Carla Kinder, Karla Dorsey, and Veda Monday would all be called on the carpet, some or all of them probably fired. Jessica Bassett and other administrators might lose their jobs as well. I doubt that East High's administrators have no higher authorities. Isn't there some district administrator? What about the Missouri Department of Education? You'd better believe that, if the will were there, there would be people in charge who could hold the racists at East High responsible for their behavior, for its plausible contribution to this unspeakable crime, and for the danger in which it is placing other white students at the school. Heads would roll and programs would be initiated for suppressing such talk, attitudes, and teaching.

Yes, about those programs. Why is it that we conservatives never seem to realize how effective they are? I mean, they have been effective, right? In the other direction, that is. Extremely, exceedingly, overwhelmingly effective. And kids can to some extent be taught. Yes, the task is Herculean, especially since, even if the school were cracking down consistently on anti-white racist talk and behavior, the students would doubtless encourage it among themselves and would doubtless go home to hotbeds of it. Yet we've seen that situation largely reversed among whites, have we not?

So, this is what I say: One reason for publicizing such stories is that they should lead to calls for openly racist black teachers in public schools to be fired, just as openly racist white teachers would be fired. They should lead to calls for public schools to seek out and root out black racist teaching that may well be leading to violence against whites. Where are children learning that being burned to death is what a white boy "deserves"? Partly, I have not the slightest doubt, in public schools. State congresses should issue calls for such actions. Lawmakers need to start talking openly and loudly about programs to combat black racism. State governors should appoint education secretaries to look into the matter and do something about it. Frankly, I don't care if this in the end means that all schools in black areas have to be entirely staffed by non-black teachers and administrators, including security guards with authority to keep order. That shouldn't be necessary, but if that's what it takes to stop this poisonous indoctrination and violence in the schools, that's what it takes. And if white students need to be personally guarded for their safety, then they should be, and if the state of Missouri (or other state) has to pay for extra manpower to protect them, including on their way to and from school, that isn't such a bad thing. Keeping law and order is the proper responsibility of the government, and in this case, the government has previously, through the schools, actively fostered the attitudes leading to these crimes.

Why should such proposals even sound radical? Don't bother to answer that. The answer is only too clear.

Commentators, a word: I will be monitoring this thread closely. Inappropriate language and links will not be tolerated.

Comments (110)

Commentators, a word: I will be monitoring this thread closely. Inappropriate language and links will not be tolerated.

In other words, don't you dare start posting links which might make intelligent white people think that this behavior is actually normal for underclass blacks.

There's a reason why middle class blacks and working class blacks who want to become middle class typically want nothing to do with the black underclass. This story is just one of many variations of the same cultural problem.

Mike T, don't be a smart-aleck. What, you want to annoy me? I'll decide what is or isn't inappropriate language and links. So far, I'm not deleting your comment, but don't act like a juvenile who is trying to see what will get the goat of the person in charge.

And good for any blacks who want nothing to do with this kind of behavior. Good for them. Maybe, if any are willing and if we give them enough backup, some of them can be the new teachers and principals and stop this madness.

I have alluded in other threads in the past that I believe a day of reckoning over race is coming. Things like this are "too little, too late." White racism dropped off severely due to severe social sanctions and making whites ashamed of their ancestors and cultures, while combining that with suppression of inconvenient facts about the behavior of the black underclass and its richer enablers (of all races). The power of the Internet is that it makes that suppression extremely difficult, and also provides a forum where people can start to express ideas that would be social heresy such as saying "he/she must have been black or hispanic if they won't describe the perpetrator." The down side to the Internet is that it will undo in 10-20 years what took about 70 to build up, and it will do so by granting the public a raw look at these incidents. The existence and prevalence of such acts, combined with state apathy and the social programing many of us went through will make for interesting times.

I agree one hundred percent. This is why racially segregated schools were, and still are, a good thing. The problem is that only the upper classes can afford them, now that the racial segregation is de facto (money-based) rather than de jure.

Lydia's point about white flight is a no-brainer. Don't let your white child go to a mostly black school if you can possibly help it! Be among the first to leave the neighborhood when blacks start moving in. I wish my own parents had moved us out sooner. It would have spared us several years of unpleasantness.

The teachers described here seem horrible, and I hope they pay for what they've done. But I've got to say that my experience was different. My black teachers generally did not tolerate any anti-white racism from the students. I never heard any racial slur from any of my teachers, unless you count my shop teacher's referring to me as "that white boy," but he didn't even mean that as an insult (I don't think he ever learned my name). But mostly, my black teachers did a fine job. When we finally moved away, my brother's teacher (who was black) told my mother that she hoped we'd be moving to a white school, because it would be much better for him.

Obviously, de jure racial segregation is not coming back. But a de facto return to segregated schooling is not beyond hope. Basically, that would mean the non-enforcement of some of the civil rights rulings. I hope that happens some day, so that white children in the lower classes will be able to enjoy the same safety as those in the upper classes.

Thanks for posting this. This is just my impression of following the news as of late but it seems as if race relations in this country are deteriorating. Does anyone else see this or am I off-base here? I honestly would like to know.

This is why racially segregated schools were, and still are, a good thing. The problem is that only the upper classes can afford them, now that the racial segregation is de facto (money-based) rather than de jure.

Wow. Just wow. Why are you assuming that racial diversity means hateful division? Isn't the solution here rooting out prejudice and racism, not cordoning off populations from each other? From a Christian perspective especially, running away from evil is the coward's way out. One thing that draws me to Christ is that he stood up to evil in a way that broke the mold so to speak of common reactions to it. He didn't flee from it like the Essenes in the desert nor did he rally against it like the Zealots with violence. He was neither a doormat, a separatist, a collaborator, nor a military leader. I won't belabor the point but just say that he didn't take the easy path.

That being said, I am more of an agnostic so I would probably take my kids out of that school and move to a safer area. As a Christian I might do the same, but not without some serious thought. If bad enough I would leave as I can be a martyr but wouldn't do that to my children. If the situation reasonably tolerable, I'd fight for justice where I am drawing on the teachings of Christ. I'd aim not at political victories but to change hearts and minds. I think we as social conservatives sometimes focus too much on politics and not this essential element, which ends up making us even more hated. Just an opinion from a twenty-something observer.

I do not at all endorse de jure racial segregation but really have no particular worries about de facto so-called "segregation," as to me it is an entirely different species of thing. For one thing, de facto "segregation" is defeasible. People of different races could at least in principle end up living together in the future in such situations if they shared common cultural values and behaviors.

I disagree, Ron, with the proposition that Christians have a special duty simply to leave themselves in dangerous situations as victims. I'm sure that specific Christians have a special calling to go into dangerous situations, just as specific Christians always have. (E.g. To be missionaries.) But I don't agree with a general premise that if you are a Christian you should have a special hesitation about moving yourself and your family out of a dangerous area, as though courting danger is a special Christian duty. As far as I'm concerned, this is no different simply because the danger comes from _people_ than it would be if the danger were of some natural disaster (such as living near an active volcano). No one would say, "If you are a Christian you should feel guilty about moving away from that volcano." There isn't any really strong reason to believe that just by existing in a highly dangerous neighborhood, for example, you can change that neighborhood or combat evil in that neighborhood. I realize that may sound shocking. But I see no reason to assume that you are being a "coward" by leaving the neighborhood--again, unless you have some special mission there and know that that mission has a good chance of doing good work. And in that case, I think you should probably be a strong, single male!

Wow. Just wow. Why are you assuming that racial diversity means hateful division? Isn't the solution here rooting out prejudice and racism, not cordoning off populations from each other? From a Christian perspective especially, running away from evil is the coward's way out. One thing that draws me to Christ is that he stood up to evil in a way that broke the mold so to speak of common reactions to it. He didn't flee from it like the Essenes in the desert nor did he rally against it like the Zealots with violence. He was neither a doormat, a separatist, a collaborator, nor a military leader. I won't belabor the point but just say that he didn't take the easy path.

Whatever you do as a single man is your business. If you put your kids in danger so they can be "salt and light" to the children of the underclass, you aren't behaving like a Christian. You're behaving like a [edited] to your children, and will deserve it 100% if they come to hate you passionately as adults.

Oood reply, Lydia. I don't think we disagree too much here. As you said in a post a while back, the Internet seems to magnify any apparent disagreements sometimes unnecessarily. I even probbably agree with Mike T. I don't have children and am single so this is all hypothetical to me. They say seeing your child born and grow creates an instinctual protectiveness in you that is difficult (and usually unwise) to defy.

Here's an additional thing I'm sure we can agree on, Ron: Jesus Christ is the paradigm case of a person who had a specific mission that required him to die. In fact, it was so specific that he saved himself (twice, IIRC) from being stoned or thrown off a cliff by a mob because he knew that he was providentially ordained to die on the cross and that his time hadn't come yet. It must be helpful to have all that information, that's for sure!

The story of what happened to Allen Coon is becoming very familiar in a world turned upside down by the dogmas of liberalism. I would guess there's not the slightest chance of an 'openly racist black teacher' getting the sack - even in America and certainly not here in Britain.

Crimes that have white victims with black perpetrators never get the publicity that is invariably and disproportionately given to black victims of white villains. There's a virtual conspiracy (vehemently denied of course) in the media to suppress information about the 'ethnicity' of any criminal who isn't white. This dishonest policy is so blatant that one feels it's superfluous to refer to it at all: so excuse me for stating the obvious.

Isn't it alleged by liberal intellectuals that only white people can have racist attitudes?

Crimes that have white victims with black perpetrators never get the publicity that is invariably and disproportionately given to black victims of white villains.

This is because they know that decades of social engineering will collapse the moment that whites get a much more accurate glimpse of how the black underclass really behaves, let alone feels about them. They also know that that behavior coupled with the strong tendency of certain "respectable" segments of the black community and whites liberals in general to defend the behavior of the black underclass would be utterly disastrous for their efforts on white racism.

The lack of honesty will be what finally drives a dagger into the heart of mainstream anti-racism among whites. The unfortunate side effect will likely be an even nastier, more "validated" racism that comes from feeling betrayed, preyed upon, etc.

Isn't it alleged by liberal intellectuals that only white people can have racist attitudes?

Yes, I believe it is. That's why of course, as occurred to me last evening, in the never-never land where such commissions as I envisage in the main post are set up, it would be imperative that they be expressly set up to combat anti-white racism, not racism in general. If the latter were done, they would simply become "more of the same"--more shallow grievance-mongering rather than addressing the actual phenomenon in question. It would be necessary to say firmly, "Look, we already have done _tons_ of things and are continuing to do so to combat white racism. This is a different concern we're addressing here, and we're not going to be distracted from that, or this investigation could become simply an instance of what it's supposed to be combating."

This is because they know that decades of social engineering will collapse the moment that whites get a much more accurate glimpse of how the black underclass really behaves, let alone feels about them.

I think this could be true, but I despair of waiting for the almost silent white majority to 'wake up' and react to the decades of social engineering which have been imposed on them. Maybe an analogue to the Great Awakening of religious sentiment which has already occurred more than once in American history could turn things around. It might.

The existence of sites such as WWWW give at least some ground for hope in the U.S. But whoever wakes in England now finds each morning unaware that everything has got worse, overnight.

I think it's a mistake to confine this discussion to the black underclass. The problem reaches further than that. Recall Auster's discussion, in the context of the OJ Simpson verdict, that black America, on the whole, can in today's day and age reasonably be seen as pro-criminal or anti-police.

Here's what I said to Grant (please note that I am rendering the comment the way I spoke it on the radio that day, without the usual qualifiers to the effect that this is obviously not true of all blacks):

We know that between 1/4 and 1/3 of black men are convicted felons. That means that a very large part of the black population are either criminals, or are the relatives and friends of criminals. That means you have a pro-criminal population. Now, how do criminals feel toward the police? They regard them as their enemies. So naturally the black population is anti-police.

The "cultural attitude," the "racial experiences" that blacks have supposedly had, and that we whites don't understand, simply comes down to the fact that blacks are a pro-criminal population that sees the police as their enemies, and that will decry any policy work as "police brutality," and then uses this "police brutality" as an excuse to rationalize any further criminal acts by blacks against whites.

But instead of understanding this, white people make the mistake of thinking that the black sense of grievance is a rational grievance, so the whites try to "understand" the blacks, to listen to them, to treat them as partners in a rational discussion. But this discussion can never go anywhere because at bottom the blacks are criminal sympathizers expressing their resentment of the society's laws.

Instead of trying to "understand" the blacks' "feelings," whites need to understand where blacks are actually coming from. Then we will stop treating them as partners in a rational discussion and identify them as the irrational criminal sympathizers that they actually are.

I think this is an important discussion for this website since there is much discussion here, in various contexts and rightly so, about the common good. But there is precious little discussion about who exactly has what in common, which must come first in the conversation.

Andrew E., I know that there _are_ blacks who are in a sense participating in "white flight" (as it were) from the dangers of the inner city.

Statistical information on percentages of convicted felons doesn't necessarily tell us about this group, as that percentage of convicted felons might very well not be spread randomly throughout the population. In fact, you could get quite a bit of "clumping," with much higher than 1/4-1/3 in one sector of the black population and much lower in a different sector, and the second sector distinctly _not_ pro-criminal. So if we're to apply empirical evidence to this, more fine-grained research would be needed.

Let's also recall that pro-criminal attitudes in some sense of "pro-criminal" are characteristic of bleeding-heart liberals who teach _many_ children of all races in the public schools.

So an interesting type of research would be this: Interview middle-class blacks in two-parent families with an income of over such-and-such dollars and a comparable group of white people about their ideas about and attitudes toward crime, including whether they themselves have ever committed particular crimes, how bad they think this or that crime is, what their opinion is about cooperating with the police in investigating crime, whether they would turn someone in for this or that crime, etc. Try to randomize and make the groups comparable as far as whether they were publicly or privately educated. This could be repeated for various social strata in urban, suburban, and other types of locations.

My guess is that if the foregoing research were done, while you might well find racial disparities in attitudes toward crime and the desire to cooperate in stopping and punishing crime that were disturbing, even in the middle class and higher, you would (I hope) find even sharper disparities between black groups in different societal strata.

Now, borrowing from some research that has been done in the UK concerning Muslims, here would be an interesting followup: Also record the age of the participants go down into the teens. Then compare across age boundaries. Question to be addressed: Are black teens and twenty-somethings being, to borrow a term from the Muslim discourse, radicalized, perhaps by racist teaching in the schools and even colleges, so that even in the middle class they have more pro-criminal ideas than their parents?

Also, we should avoid tunnel-vision on this stuff. Anyone (like me) with an Italian and Irish background cannot avoid the suspicion that there were (and to a lesser extent are) big swaths of pro-criminal sentiment in these communities. It's talking about mob-run areas. It's less horrifying, perhaps, because neighborhoods dominated by organized crime may well be free of constant chaos and ugly street crime, but you need look no further than America's favorite films to discover a considerable pro-criminal sentiment across most demographics.

Let's also recall that pro-criminal attitudes in some sense of "pro-criminal" are characteristic of bleeding-heart liberals who teach _many_ children of all races in the public schools.

Let's also recall that there are a lot of extremely serious problems with American law enforcement today which are rapidly alienating even many white conservatives. In many areas of the country, the police have become the "standing army" our founders feared would undermine the republic.

If you follow civil liberties news, you will find that white America is increasingly starting to be treated in ways that eerily reminiscent of how blacks claimed the police treated them. In fact, I would say that a significant amount of the victims of police brutality I see popping up are actually white. Having lost fear of reprisal back then, they fell confident in using excessive force in a variety of ways against the much more politically powerful white groups.

So, I think you have to be careful about the black middle class there. A lot of them actually aren't pro-criminal so much as anti-police.

It's less horrifying, perhaps, because neighborhoods dominated by organized crime may well be free of constant chaos and ugly street crime, but you need look no further than America's favorite films to discover a considerable pro-criminal sentiment across most demographics.

It's worth remembering though that organized crime generally held itself to a corrupt code of ethics which is non-existent in the ghetto. For example, if a mob boss wanted you dead, his men simply would not touch your wife and children. If one of them raped your wife and the boss found out, heaven help the poor bastard because the bosses wanted to be seen as "respectable men."

Tough neighbourhoods that are economically exploited or even 'policed' by the local mob are amenable to change for the better. Law and order can return. But what we seem to be up against now are educated mobsters who operate inside schools and other civic institutions. They attempt to control public debate on the wrongs we're talking about here, and the law is on their side.

I agree with Lydia that such studies would be extremely important and beneficial. But I still have a vivid memory from high school when the local D.C. news station replayed the reaction of an auditorium full of Howard University students to the announcement of the OJ Simpson verdict. They, hundreds of students watching the verdict live on a large screen, immediately jumped up in perfect unison in uncontrollable happiness and began hugging and screaming and jumping for joy. Even then, as a totally naive and clueless teenager, I had the distinct understanding that I was witnessing something revelatory but I couldn't process exactly what it was because it was so different from everything I had assumed.

I wonder if Paul can give us similar examples of a national "sack dance" (as Auster called it) within the white communities he mentions.

Andrew, I do think that the "lesson" of the reaction to the OJ verdict was real and disturbing. And what you say about Howard University students is indeed terrifying. I just think further data is necessary to be very confident as to how this plays out in terms of probability of crime and danger, difficulty getting cooperation in investigating crime, in different neighborhoods and social groups among blacks. For example, horrible as this is, the OJ verdict had been turned into a symbol. Does this mean that those Howard students would actually, personally cover up for a murder or refuse to help the police if a black acquaintance of their own murdered his wife? Or would they themselves commit violent crime? I don't know the answers to these questions.

Lydia, the problem you described in this post is just not an American problem, it's a world wide one. In Africa, the exact same behavior patterns are seen. In South Africa, the Boers are facings constant acts of violence against their lives and property from the blacks and the goverment. A leader of the ANC even sings a song about killing the Boers at political rallies. And you talk about white fight, when these nations in Africa gained their freedom from the European governments, the majority of the whites left. Overnight,these countries became hellholes of incrediable violence and crime. The whites who left knew this was going to happen, so they got out while they had a chance to get out. Haiti, which became the first black ruled nation in the West, has the same history of violence. When the slaves got their freedom, they killed every white person they could get their hands on. It was the world's biggest black-on-white crime that was ever committed. Haiti is still a mess today, in spite of all the aid and assistance it has gotten over the last two hundred years.
Lydia, don't count on the politicians to solve this problem for us. They created this problem with their so-called civil rights laws, their 'fair housing' laws, so they could pander for the black vote. The MSM won't help us either; they won't report black crime realistically. They will deliberately censor black-on-white crime stories because they don't want to fuel 'racism'. Even my hometown paper, the Peoria Jornal Star, tries to censor this kind of news, but it's kind of hard to do if the story mentions the scene of the crime as Martin Luther King Blvd. The only way things are going to change is when the white people stop running from the problem (white flight) and start puting political and financial pressure on the politicians. 'Explain' to them, in no uncertain terms, that we have a right to associate in our neighborhoods, our clubs, our churches etc. with whoever we want to. That, if we own a business, we have a right to refuse service to anyone. Demand the repeal of all 'hate crime' laws at the state and local level. Ruthlessly expose race hustlers like Jackson, Sharpton, and the late Martin Luther King and their organizations such as PUSH, SCLC, and the NAACP for the scams that they are. Inform the blacks in the ghettos to get the crime and violence in the hood under control or we will do it for them. Short of armed rebellion, I don't know what else we can do.

I would, in fact, favor the repeal of non-discrimination and public accommodations laws. I think such a repeal would have a lot of implications for religion as well as race. However, it's a little bit like thermodynamics. It's easier to break an egg than to put one back together. Not having had public accommodations and non-discrimination laws in the first place would have helped to preserve a more orderly and traditional society (in my opinion). But the actual repeal of non-discrimination and public accommodations laws in our present world would have unpredictable effects. I suspect it would be strongly used by Muslims to strengthen their own enclaves, for example. Would it still be worth it? Possibly. Meanwhile, I favor trying as far as lieth in us to hold the liberals' feet to the fire when they blatantly apply such laws unfairly, because otherwise we are simply getting the worst of both world. So, for example, I support the complaint being presently brought by a Canadian sportscaster who was fired for "tweeting" that he supports traditional marriage. He definitely has the right to cry foul there. No reason to go gently and accept the one-sided application of these things.

I'm not sure what you mean about "we will do it for them." While I strongly support self-defense, concealed carry, and second amendment rights, at the moment I'm not at all prepared to support outright vigilantism. The police should "do it for them." I support absolutely hawkish and no-nonsense law enforcement. Is it at all possible at the city level to get this done, and let the chips fall where they may as far as percentage of arrests by race? I suppose it depends on the city.

Probably our best bet is to preserve law and order in small cities that have not yet truly gone dowwwn in terms of crime and order. In those places people still have an idea that criminals should be arrested and prosecuted, regardless of race. Getting them to stick to that is a rearguard action but one worth carrying out.

I'm not sure what you mean about "we will do it for them." While I strongly support self-defense, concealed carry, and second amendment rights, at the moment I'm not at all prepared to support outright vigilantism. The police should "do it for them." I support absolutely hawkish and no-nonsense law enforcement. Is it at all possible at the city level to get this done, and let the chips fall where they may as far as percentage of arrests by race? I suppose it depends on the city.

The injustice factors are a lot more complicated than that. For example, in many of these areas, you have limited self-defense rights and when you use them, you know all too well that they will likely be interpreted by a race-sensitive prosecutor who has no obligation to see things from your perspective during that heated moment. Quite often, the police are the enemies of the victim. At such times, vigilantism is morally neutral. Christians can squawk all they want about Romans 13 and such, but when a government goes into open rebellion against its divine mandate under Romans 13, it is an institutional sinner with no rights before God or man.

But then, I would leave to see the Department of Defense seize the arms of all police forces nation wide in jurisdictions which generally regulate the 2nd amendment to meaninglessness in their area so I'm not exactly "pro-cop."

If you follow civil liberties news, you will find that white America is increasingly starting to be treated in ways that eerily reminiscent of how blacks claimed the police treated them.

Mike, thanks for posting this. People assume that blacks are wary of Andy Griffith type cops and wonder what the big deal is until the cops kick in their door and shoot their dog.

Also, most middle class blacks are NOT pro-criminal because we know that the majority of crimes are still black-on-black. The real problem, IMO is an unwillingness to confront the way that our own behavior contributes to the problems in the black community for fear of being called a "sell-out." Look at the backlash against Bill Cosby for the comments he made. I can practically guarantee you that most of the people who were upset with him have said the same things, or heard them from the pulpit. But you aren't supposed to air the dirty laundry. Well, that approach hasn't worked too well. Being mindful of the definition of insanity, I wish more people would say what Cosby said, read the Moynihan report without defensiveness and see how prophetic it was, etc.

Thanks, CJ. I really appreciate that. Your comments are part of what I mean about differential attitudes in different groups and not overgeneralizing.

As for being pro-cop or cops kicking in doors and what-not, what I'm concerned about is the anti-snitch idea and sympathizing with the criminal or saying, "I didn't see anything" in what I would call "real" crimes, by which I do not mean selling brownies without having your kitchen USDA approved!!

People assume that blacks are wary of Andy Griffith type cops and wonder what the big deal is until the cops kick in their door and shoot their dog.

If more cops were actually like Andy Griffith and not vacillating between Barney Fife and a two-bit Rambo, you probably wouldn't have the anti-snitch culture in the first place. This is why I think the most critical reform we need today is to reinstate the right to use force to resist unlawful arrest, even if that means making it clear to the cops that if they are in the wrong and escalate it to the use of firearms, a CCW holder can shoot them.

As for being pro-cop or cops kicking in doors and what-not, what I'm concerned about is the anti-snitch idea and sympathizing with the criminal or saying, "I didn't see anything" in what I would call "real" crimes, by which I do not mean selling brownies without having your kitchen USDA approved!!

Well, you have to realize that the anti-snitching culture is built on the broken relationship many black communities have with the police. People who often treat your constitutional rights like toilet paper aren't going to earn your trust. There is a very real sense even in many parts of the white community today the cops are simply "the gang with the badge."

Consider the fact, Lydia, that even in the most brazen of police shootings, actions which are objectively felonious, the police almost never lock up their own. Virtually nothing is too egregious to get the police management to call in the DA to bring charges. It is almost always "justified" upon review. I could drown this comment section in examples of this behavior.

As for being pro-cop or cops kicking in doors and what-not, what I'm concerned about is the anti-snitch idea and sympathizing with the criminal or saying, "I didn't see anything" in what I would call "real" crimes, by which I do not mean selling brownies without having your kitchen USDA approved!!

I deplore the "stop snitching" attitude as well, at least those who do it out of "principle" (and I use that word loosely). I do sympathize with people who fear reprisals as they do have to live in the community after the case is over.

When I clerked for a felony court judge, there was a murder case where the defendant's brother was an NFL player, and so he had access to considerable resources. There was a witness to the crime who testified at a preliminary hearing. She was a prosecutor's dream; well dressed, articulate, etc. However, prior to the trial, she got some mysterious phone calls that couldn't be linked to the defendant. She showed up for her trial testimony wearing a sweatsuit and flip-flops with rollers in her hair, not to mention a sudden case of amnesia. He ended up pleading out to a lesser charge and got a 5 year sentence. It was disappointing, but what can you do? How long would the cops have protected her after the case was over? Even the people who do have middle-class values are cowed by the criminal element. That's why flight is often the best option.

I do sympathize with people who fear reprisals as they do have to live in the community after the case is over.

Well, right, CJ, but that just says totally terrifying things about the community. A huge, huge culture problem.

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Mike T, no, I'm sorry. I'm not sympathetic to your overall approach. First you come into this thread initially implying that I'm some kind of wimp and will probably delete comments that say the wrong kinds of things about the behavior of the black underclass. Having failed to look like a poor, downtrodden victim of political correctness, you have moved on to a) advocating anarchy (your stock in trade) and b) of all things, _sympathizing_ with the "no-snitch" culture of...you guessed it...the black underclass! Because the cops are just so nasty and anti-civil liberties. I get you: We should just eliminate the cops, nreturn to a state of nature, and fight it out among ourselves. Great. Hobbes meets Ayn Rand. Or something. No thanks.

Of all the things I might have thought I'd have to smack your knuckles for in this thread, actual sympathy in principle for "don't snitch" was not high on the list of expectations. But bag it, already.

Lydia, we will "have to do it for them" because the leadership of the black community is too spineless to do it themselves. The white community has to send the police a clear message that they want black crime brought under control. If the police refuse to do it because of the PC laws that have been passed in the last 50 years then, wheither we like it or not, vigilantism will have to become the de facto law enforcement entity. It's nothing I look foward to, but since black crime has already touched the neighborhood I live in, (I live ten miles north of Peoria) it might be the only way I can defend my life and property.

Certainly, defend your life and property, Stephen. But I wouldn't endorse nor advise setting up a private auxiliary force and taking the fight for law and order "out there." For one thing, you'd be crushed from both sides.

We still do live in a republican democracy of some sort or other. If enough people actually got outraged, we could _repeal_ those stupid PC laws that hamstring our law enforcement system. If necessary, tell our rulers to defy the courts on sensitivity training and disparate impact and all that jazz.

By the way, Stephen: My dearest childhood memories are of attending a Baptist camp near the tiny town of Metamora, Illinois, not far from Peoria. It's still there and running. I have occasionally entertained fantasies of visiting the camp years from now in my old age. However, probably the easiest way to do that would be to stay in Peoria for a couple of nights. You're giving me pause about any such idea.

Mike T, no, I'm sorry. I'm not sympathetic to your overall approach. First you come into this thread initially implying that I'm some kind of wimp and will probably delete comments that say the wrong kinds of things about the behavior of the black underclass.

Sorry about that. It's... been a day.

We still do live in a republican democracy of some sort or other. If enough people actually got outraged, we could _repeal_ those stupid PC laws that hamstring our law enforcement system. If necessary, tell our rulers to defy the courts on sensitivity training and disparate impact and all that jazz.

I think the point you're missing is that most of the commenters here actually don't trust the police themselves anymore. As I have pointed out in various threads, the police often simply don't obey the law and short of resurrecting the posse comitatus, who will hold them accountable? Our "representatives" don't have arrest powers and constitutional strictures prevent them from quickly rooting out any rat's nest of corruption they find. Not that long ago, in Milwaukee I believe, the chief of police openly said more or less "I don't give a damn that open carry is legal by positive statute of law; if I catch you open carrying, my cops will treat you like a thug."

The problem is exactly as CJ pointed out. There are many blacks that are scared out of their minds to work with the cops. The cops won't give a rodent's posterior about them the moment the case is over, and the criminal element today often has a straight pipeline of associaties from maximum security prisons all the way back to the hood. That's especially true of the Mexican Mafia and some of the other hispanic groups; you screw them, their buddies will get you good and hard and even if the police wanted to be there, they don't have the manpower. This problem was no in no small part created by repressive local governments that completely stepped outside of their constitutional mandate and even assaulted their state and federal constitutional obligations.

You think I am sympathetic to the anti-snitching thing? Hardly. I merely recognize that for many blacks it is a death sentence since there is a strong intersection between these problem areas and liberal policies which put them at the mercy of the criminal element.

Stephen and those like him are an increasingly large part of the white population that is sick to death of feeling like they are pressed against a wall by corrupt politicians, thugs and a legal system all too willing to cast justice to the wind. They are the first signs of the day of reckoning that I have been warning people of for the last few years. What is manageable frustration now can become unmanageable if the economy creates the right powder keg of racial hostilities, fear of personal safety, loss of much to live for and a sense that the government has stopped caring about them.

You think my proposal about making unlawful arrest resistible by force is promotion of anarchy, but the exact opposite is true. I come from a law enforcement family (both parents). My father is an older retiree and from what one might call "the old guard" from before police militarization. He was the first person I ever heard who said that the worst thing that happened to law enforcement was when private citizens could no longer use force against cops who are breaking the law in the performance of their duties because it encouraged corruption in the police and fear, resentment and eventually hatred among the citizens affected. I don't want to see modern law enforcement wiped out or anything of the sort; I want to see the self-entitled cops get their asses handed to them by the law and made to understand that they are not Titled Men, but citizens bound to the law and civic duty like the rest of us.

If you want to help stop people who feel like Stephen does from eventually feeling like they have to go down the path he talked about, doing things like that and restoring the posse comitatus will go a long, long way. We need to bring the government back in line, restore the law enforcement authority of the posse comitatus and then we'll have the society capable of preventing anarchy.

I think the point you're missing is that most of the commenters here actually don't trust the police themselves anymore.

I think the point that you're missing, Mike, is that "most of the commenters" constitutes precisely zero in terms of the editorial policy of this website. Still less does "Mike T's idea of what most of the commenters think" influence our approach. We're law-and-order conservatives here (though we're hardly insensate to the instances of, and the potential for further instances of abuse). Your extreme generalizations about various groups undermine whatever persuasion you have in mind. Cops are all aspiring tyrants, it appears. The fact that we have an overabundance of militarized police and that this is a real problem morphs into an image of American life that resembles The Shield. Perhaps you would prefer the hands-off approach of pre-Giuliani New York. Maybe Buckley in his Mayoral run was all wet when he constantly called attention to the lawlessness in the city. Maybe that's your view of American history. Please do not impute it to the good folks of W4.

Mike, for one thing, it's just thread-jacking to turn this into a discussion of the alleged universal badness of the police. It's obvious that that isn't even remotely what this thread is about and also that it's a _perfectly normal_ thing to call for law and order to be enforced in all communities, including black communities. For everyone's sake.

The "police aren't to be trusted and there's no point in calling for law enforcement" hobby horse is really driving you, not the other way around. You need to make it give you a rest.

Mike, for one thing, it's just thread-jacking to turn this into a discussion of the alleged universal badness of the police. It's obvious that that isn't even remotely what this thread is about and also that it's a _perfectly normal_ thing to call for law and order to be enforced in all communities, including black communities. For everyone's sake.

What I see behind all of these decisions is the power of the legal system. Cops, prosecutors and judges backing these students, these teachers and these administrators. At the end of the day, when the parents protect their kids or the kids fight back, it'll be the legal system that will come down hard on them on behalf of the thugglings, these racist teachers and administrators.

But you know what, I should probably bow out if you think it's thread-jacking. I don't like that even though I am sometimes guilty of it.

I do sympathize with people who fear reprisals as they do have to live in the community after the case is over.

To me, this represents the perfect response to the "get rid of the death penalty" crowd. You lose all possibility of law and order when criminals go around threatening witnesses and jurors. Which is happening more and more. Anyone caught perverting the justice system like that should be subject to death, no question, (and no possibility of leniency, in my opinion).

Andrew, and Mike, I have one comment in reply to the "cops are the problem" mantra. Some 20% of police officers in large cities are black. There is no way in the world that could be the case if blacks as a whole had a uniform disgust of police. There is, still, a fair amount of respect for police. We need to increase it, and PART of that is teaching police to stay within the constitution, but that's only a part. We have been failing to pass on rule of law civilization to the next generation, in my view mainly because we have managed (through the elites in the universities spreading lies like disease) to abandon natural law, and all the rest of law is quicksand if not built on a firm foundation.

This discussion seems to have formed several offshoots since I checked in yesterday

Unless I've missed it, nobody seems to have made a suggestion that the MSM should be compelled to publish accurate information about the extent of black crime - especially black on white violence. This at least would be a step forward in the direction of complete disclosure of the facts. There are studies in learned journals which carefully investigate black delinquency, but they are not read by the vast majority of the general public.

I've no idea how the media could be 'compelled' , by informed minority opinion, to abandon their dishonest policy of suppressing particulars that reveal what's going on in this field of concern. Such compulsion seems unthinkable in a 'liberal democracy' and would amount to censorship of the press. And I dare say many journalists believe they're fostering better race relations by omitting facts and figures from their reports that would show black people in a bad light.

I have no taste for coercion of the media. The internet has already broken the back of the establishment monopoly.

Frankly, I'm not convinced there is a systematic suppression of reporting on this, anymore than there is, say, a systematic suppression of exposure of Communist evil. There is fear, ideology, corruption, despair and laziness at work. There are a lot of nefarious demagogues, and a whole huge swath of unthinking folks led by them.

You don't have to be white to get horribly mistreated -- with administration negligence abetting it -- at schools all over this country. The schools are awash in fashionable and pernicious education theorizing. Social media has introduced a new and menacing element, as we have seen with the late mob actions. Financial perfidy abounds.

Tony makes a great point about the racial make-up of urban police forces. According to La Wik, Atlanta's is over half black. NYPD is almost 30% Hispanic and 20% black. These police forces have their bad apples; they find themselves stymied in many devastated neighborhoods; but they are by and large successful at maintaining cities worthy of civilized life. Moreover, since the explosion of crime in the 60s and 70s, many cities have made steady (if far from complete) progress.

As with the schools, any police department in this country will be found tinctured with failure, rapacity, deceit, tribalism and injustice. But then again, one need only ride in a patrol car in any major city for a week to observe the intense demands of the job.

Paul, I'm afraid there _is_ a systemic suppression of the truth on this. I instance here the way that the racial slurs against Allen Coon were suppressed in various local news reports. Get this: In one report they said that they simply said, "This is what you deserve" but left out the words "white boy." In other reports (and this happens again and again and again) they did not report the race of the perpetrators or the victim. Now, I ask you: Compare this to reporting of crime forty years ago. Even within _my_ memory the race of perpetrators and victims were reported regularly. Now they aren't. And the _blatant_ racial taunting that accompanied this unspeakable crime was chopped up and partially suppressed. One news story did contain the "white boy" expression, so it got out.

In one story on what happened to Allen, reporting that the police would not pursue hate crime charges, the story said that some had speculated it would be a hate crime because of the race of the perpetrators and victims. As though that were the only reason. Completely dropped were the racial slurs at the time of the crime.

These sorts of things cannot all be coincidence. The evidence is actually pretty overwhelming, and this case is just a microcosm. Think of the story after story that just says "youths" did such-and-such and doesn't mention the race of some flash mob or other.

Now, the media can't and shouldn't be directly compelled to do otherwise. However, in America we do have some papers (like the Washington Times) and web sites (like CNS News) that have a name as "conservative" sources. _They_ at least can be pressured by their constituency to report accurately and fully on such things.

I also think it wouldn't hurt if through various venues the message got back to the MSM that one reason their monopoly is breaking down is precisely that people don't trust them on these very issues.

I guess I didn’t initially object to what Paul wrote because I assumed that by “systematic” he meant a conscious conspiracy i.e. reporters have a secret, spoken understanding not to report these things and his interpretation is that the culprit is “fear, ideology, corruption, despair and laziness”, etc. I agree with Paul, particularly on the “ideology” part (liberal ideology, that is). Lydia’s comment is right on too but I think y’all are talking past each other.

But the ideology is so totally overwhelming that it honestly seems implausible to me that they never speak of it. Has this vast change in reporting habits really happened entirely without any spoken discussion? It seems to me that there must have been plenty of times when an editor cut out the racial aspect or told a reporter not to include it. This didn't just happen osmotically, nor overnight. In the 1970's, even, racial crime was more honestly reported even though the journalists tended to be liberal in sympathy. Something has utterly undermined the honesty of the journalistic profession, and I do not believe that it has been inexplicit. In fact, I'm quite sure the notion of advocacy journalism and its implications are taught in college and high school journalism classes.

There comes a point at which the distinction between blatant ideology and "conspiracy" is more than a tad blurry.

In one story on what happened to Allen, reporting that the police would not pursue hate crime charges

Lydia, I'll lay off the police angle as much as is necessary to not risk thread-jacking accusations from here on out, but this is an angle you ought to consider. The police can charge them, but won't. It's also quite dangerous for politicians to play politics because under recent Supreme Court rulings, the police have tremendous discretionary powers to detain literally anyone without constitutional immunity for suspected crimes. It's not unrealistic to say that a Sheriff or Chief with cajones of steel could easily walk right into a politician's office and slap handcuffs on him for Obstruction of Justice for pressuring him to not enforce the law as written and there isn't a thing the appointee or elected official could do to stop him. Furthermore, the police have always had the ability to make life a living hell for DAs that refuse to uphold their end of the legal system. One great example is making it clear to the DA and his or her prosecutors that if they ever have a run in with the law, the police will throw everything in the law and the kitchen sink at them. Growing up in a law enforcement family, I heard a few tales of this sort of thing and how easily ethical cops can put the fear of God in the hearts of bureaucrats who are out of line.

I have no taste for coercion of the media. The internet has already broken the back of the establishment monopoly.

A Christian state and indeed any well regulated society would not be a popular democracy, and neither would allow an unprincipled media to suppress the truth or misrepresent the facts etc. - which has happened in the case of Allen Coon and many others.

Coercion of the press might be necessary to the promotion of virtue. In the Kingdom of Earth which is increasingly influenced by what gets disseminated on the licentious internet, the hope of a Christian Renaissance diminishes with each hour that passes.

The funny thing is, Alex, that I think in this case the democracy angle would often have aided the cause of justice. Consider, for example, the fact that the courts have repeatedly ordered racially unpopular things based on, shall we say, _highly creative_ interpretations of state and federal constitutions. For example, police are told that they can't pull over or stop "too many" people of various races, this without reference to whether a disproportionate number of people of such races are doing things that give probable cause for pulling them over or stopping them. There are many such instances. The hugely unpopular busing regime (since mercifully lifted) in America was imposed by the courts.

And think of what I proposed in the main post: State or local commissions to investigate and combat specifically anti-white racism. Do you think that would survive a court challenge? I'd say, not a chance. Yet there are probably states or at least localities where it _might_ survive a popular vote, where the people themselves would know that there really is a problem of virulent anti-white racism that needs to be addressed.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that democracy is on the side of truth and justice in all of this. But I would say that anti-democracy is hugely against truth and justice. More so than hoi polloi. We hardly need more anti-democratic rule on this issue.

Lydia, I'm not sure what you have in mind when you speak of "anti-democracy". There are many political possibilities from popular democracy to outright totalitarianism. Truth and justice would prevail in a society regulated by Christian principles as I'm confident you'd agree, but wouldn't that be governed as a 'hierarchical polity' and not as a democracy?

As things are, “The truth is mighty and will prevail” is a prayer rather than an axiom. (George Orwell said this, not me).

In our own present culture, what I mean by "anti-democracy" is the government by elites (who are usually liberal) in subversion of the structures and mechanisms intended to be present in our constitutional and representative democracy. Usually this comes in the form of judicial usurpation but sometimes takes the form of delegation of huge dictatorial powers to unelected bureaucrats, as in the case of Obamacare and the HHS.

I'm the not-so-closet "classical liberal" around here. I'm not looking to put in place a hierarchical Christian society. I would love, were it possible, to revive grassroots culture in line with the principles of Christianity. In that case, a representative democratic republic such as the founders set up could work very well as a de facto Christian country. It used to.

Thank you Lydia for bringing this topic to discussion. It has been forty years since I first experienced racism but I have never had the freedom of speech or the interested audience in order to bring it forward.
In the hands of MSM, racism is a one way street.

It's really odd, the anecdotal and persistent trends of events and attitudes. I think perhaps what we are seeing is that there is a stratification of a lower class into a more hard-bound body than before.

Here's my data: there are VASTLY more black people now in good-paying, respected professions, enough so that nobody even notices the black doctor, the black female math professor, the black engineer these days, where 30 years ago having any of these professions would have meant both a BIG achievement race-wise, and some degree of taking it on the chin from white people in the process of achieving that success. Not any more. I see this in my job: two managers in my division are black, two are white, and nobody much cares which is which, they are all quite professional, I would be just as happy under one as under another. These black people have no problem going to white-majority social events, parties, picnics, and so on. There are black people in my neighborhood of whom I am proud that they are willing to be my friends, it is cultural climbing for me to in their circle. Black people who really want to get out of slum attitude can mostly do so if they spend 10 or 12 years of hard work trying.

On the other hand, there is the other trend, of racial incidents of blacks not only attacking whites (that was true 30 years ago too) but it is then treated as nothing worth noting, sometimes not called a crime at all, other times only a commercial or violent crime but never a hate crime. And schools apparently teaching same. A white friend of mine out running accidentally found himself running in the "deep" black section of town, slowed to a walk, was approached by an older black man who walked with him, and when they reached the edge of that part of town the black fellow turned away and told him "and don't come back here," (clearly intending advice of prudence and safety). The black fellow clearly thought my friend could have become a statistic - his estimate, not ours.

If I had only the day-to-day evidence of my own personal experience (as above) to go by, I would have absolutely no doubt that racial problems in this country were trending in the right direction, that in another 50 years the whole issue would be pretty much behind us (far too long, but less than the 300 years prior history we had to unravel). But obviously that isn't the whole picture.

So, my question is, where are the peaceful, productive, energetic, well integrated blacks on this? What do they say about black-on-white race hatred crimes? Do they justify it? Do they think these are aberrations of a small minority, for example? Do they simply shrug and pass on by, as if it were nothing of note? Do they distance themselves from it (and from the inner city) so as not to attract attention?

5 or 10 years or so ago, Bill Cosby tried to speak out about blacks creating their own problems with anti-civilized behavior (and attitudes of justification for that) - and he was roundly criticized for it in quite a few black circles (and their lapdog MSM outlets). Is it any easier for blacks to speak the truth now? Is the truth any less bitter now?

Tony, I would be very interested myself, in a somewhat nervous way, to know what people like your black division managers would say about this crime and about the black-on-white beat-down mobs and all the rest of the things that are, I'm afraid, really growing. (Sometimes they are brought together by social media.) Or the "get whitey" night at the state fair--I believe it was in Wisconsin. Terrifying stuff, and apparently on the rise.

My _guess_ is that they would either a) deny that this has anything to do with race, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, b) spin some liberal line to the effect that poverty (desperation, blah, blah) is the cause of crime, or c) refer to some white-on-black crime or other, perhaps long ago, as a way of implying not only an equivalence in badness but, even worse, an equivalence in _prevalence_ and in the number of people involved and in present social attitudes to and awareness of the crimes. Then again, I'm afraid that's what liberal whites would do as well! Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

That's why the kind of research I mentioned well up-thread would be interesting: Researching attitudes toward crime and criminal investigation among both blacks and whites in different social groups and of different ages.

Another thing I've been curious about is what the neighborhood is like in which the crime in the main post took place. Obviously a heavily black neighborhood, but is it ostensibly "ghetto," "middle-class," or what? The very fact that these families from Texas recently deliberately moved there might make one think that it isn't the worst type of inner-city neighborhood. And the administrator did even imply that there were _worse_ schools Allen could go to in the district. (Yikes!)

The world is filled with folks who articulate crazy ideas. Hang with any class of men -- poor, middle class, or rich -- of any race, and you are likely to observe professed some ideas of extraordinary folly and depravity. I've been struck by the shocking words I've heard uttered by doctors in my personal presence in recent years; words that confirm that very horror shows we're seeing like post-birth abortion. So that nervousness you speak of, Lydia, is well known. Likewise I've been struck by the blind hatred that the (still-ongoing though perhaps near its finale) Denver Broncos QB drama has aroused. Many otherwise normal people have exhibited shocking antipathy, not just for Tebow but for all hard-working earnest Christians of high character.

In all of these situations I faced a choice of whether to speak up and confront the despicable idea or sentiment, or let it pass out of convenience or comity. I chose variously, with varying results. Anyway, this problem is not curable; it inheres in man. People very frequently embrace despicable ideas or sentiments.

On a more hopeful note, I can attest to the fairness and courage of many blacks folks I've known. I once got pulled into one of these babies. Unpleasant, to say the least. However, I'll never forget that a young black woman behind me in class asked one of the first questions and made a point to emphasize that in her life she'd seen anti-white racism bad as any other, and that after all there were places much worse than America. The professor was visibly discontented at this but I was braced and cheered. Rarely have I felt such a kinship of basic patriotism.

One problem is that streetsmart is praised in name, but assailed and undermined by ideology. Walk through all but the very worst neighborhoods in America with confidence and alertness (at night you'd have to add some stealth) and your chances are pretty good, no matter the racial differences, to arrive intact to your destination. Appear frightened, easily intimidated, clueless, invite the attention of the wicked, the idle or the lustful and your experience could turn for the worse, at the hands of thugs from any number of racial backgrounds. But all the judgment and assiduity of rational observation and conclusion, which empowers people to achieve that confidence and alertness, is often demonized as next door to blind prejudice. A related problem is that in any crisis you have to judge on incomplete facts and any number of heuristic devices might be relied upon.

As Christians we all must examine our consciences about our treatment of our fellow man. Where has our charity failed, because failed it surely has, not just as individuals but as churches? But let us never forget that our laws, our standards of due process, are not of this world. We answer to another Judge.

But all the judgment and assiduity of rational observation and conclusion, which empowers people to achieve that confidence and alertness, is often demonized as next door to blind prejudice. A related problem is that in any crisis you have to judge on incomplete facts and any number of heuristic devices might be relied upon.

Quite true. There are actual incidents, with names, of women who have deliberately gone with or even failed to take a roundabout route stranger men of whom they should have been wary, on grounds other than race, because in fact the man belonged to a preferred racial group and the women didn't want to appear racist, followed by dire consequences.

Walk through all but the very worst neighborhoods in America with confidence and alertness (at night you'd have to add some stealth) and your chances are pretty good, no matter the racial differences, to arrive intact to your destination. Appear frightened, easily intimidated, clueless, invite the attention of the wicked, the idle or the lustful and your experience could turn for the worse, at the hands of thugs from any number of racial backgrounds.

I should think, though, that the amount one could achieve in the way of personal safety would vary depending on age, gender, and size. A woman or boy (not a very large boy) might be able to look as alert and confident as possible but still be in grave danger.

I should think, though, that the amount one could achieve in the way of personal safety would vary depending on age, gender, and size. A woman or boy (not a very large boy) might be able to look as alert and confident as possible but still be in grave danger.

Unquestionably true.

Other factors could be thrown in, too. A smaller man, but armed and well-trained (i.e., who's a good shot and smart with a weapon) could probably do better than even the biggest unarmed guy. The problem for a man with being big and strong is that he may invite challenge by other big strong men. Also, a streetsmart little boy or girl, by sheer elusiveness, could actually be the most effective. Not infrequently children have performed the messenger role in even the most unspeakable cities of wartorn holocaust.

I want to again emphasize what I said upthread: some neighborhoods only appear unsafe to unfamiliar eyes. It may be that you feel you're just this side of hell, when it true fact you're only in a gritty place that looks worse than it is. Perhaps there is a very good police presence, and two patrol cars already know that you're only three blocks away and are scouting your mostly likely route; perhaps there are a mass of newly alert property owners, and the place has a solid future as a reviving neighborhood. Our perceptions are not always accurate. I know that the antiquity of Southern neighborhoods compared to Denver neighborhoods threw me off when I first moved to the South. In time I realized that what I thought might be bad ghettos were just plain older than anything I'd known.

These sorts of things cannot all be coincidence. The evidence is actually pretty overwhelming, and this case is just a microcosm. Think of the story after story that just says "youths" did such-and-such and doesn't mention the race of some flash mob or other.

Thanks for following this story and those like it, Lydia. These are awful situations - informed by awful ideologies and even pathologies - and they need to be subjected to consistent and unwavering scrutiny.

I'd like to note, though, that even as you begin to take a stand here, the story about modern race relations in the US that's dominating the news and leftist blogsphere across the English-speaking world runs in rather the opposite direction. Many hopeful commentators are already declaring that this will be the incident that "shifts" or "restarts" the "dialogue" about "race" in the US, whatever that might meen. No doubt it will become even more fatuous, cowardly and euphemistic, but who knows?

Daniel, I know. I don't want to say a lot about that, but I'll just say this: The "no stone will be left unturned," the FBI involved, all of that, in the Martin case, and the disparities with Allen Coon's case and plenty of other black-on-white crime cases, cases _blatantly_ motivated by racial hatred, make me very angry indeed.

I have to say, too, Paul, that I think your prescription for getting through neighborhoods safely isn't really getting at the scope and root of the problem I'm talking about here.

Allen Coon obviously was not nearly burned to death because he wasn't walking down the street with sufficient alertness and confidence. I hope we can agree on that.

In Philadelphia recently a man was dragged from the back of a taxi and beaten, with racial slurs, apparently just for existing while white in the wrong place and the wrong time. I don't think the taxi needed to be driving more confidently to avoid this beating.

I remember another incident reported on one of the wilding nights (I believe it was last year or the year before) in the summer where a black gang blocked the road and stopped a car with a man and his wife. I forget if he got out or if they dragged him out, but they beat him severely while his wife hysterically called 911 on her cell phone inside the car. There was no question there of just "walking different" or "being more alert" to avoid this. The mob evidently appeared out of nowhere and blocked the road.

The people in Wisconsin last year were simply attending the state fair!

We've had posts right here in which gangs go out and plan to run up unexpectedly on a randomly selected white passerby, even on a bike, and knock him down while filming.

I really, really do not think that this is a matter of thinking that the victims could have gotten through all of that just fine if they had had more street smarts, unless, of course, "street smarts" is going to be radically reinterpreted to mean things like, "Don't go to the state fair."

Perhaps you can say that Tony's runner friend, above, showed a lack of "street smarts" simply by accidentally ending up in the "deep black" part of town! But then that, of course, would support my overall point about simply avoiding certain places, wouldn't it? Apparently his black protector didn't think he'd be okay if he just ran confidently and alertly! Now, I suppose that might fall into your caveat about "the worst neighborhoods," but in that case people had darned well better know which are "the worst neighborhoods" into which they *had better not go at all*. Telling them that you can get through most places safely if you just have street smarts and walk right is, in my opinion, not really teaching the lesson that present-day, and increasing, realities call for.

Perhaps you can say that Tony's runner friend, above, showed a lack of "street smarts" simply by accidentally ending up in the "deep black" part of town! But then that, of course, would support my overall point about simply avoiding certain places, wouldn't it? Apparently his black protector didn't think he'd be okay if he just ran confidently and alertly! Now, I suppose that might fall into your caveat about "the worst neighborhoods," but in that case people had darned well better know which are "the worst neighborhoods" into which they *had better not go at all*. Telling them that you can get through most places safely if you just have street smarts and walk right is, in my opinion, not really teaching the lesson that present-day, and increasing, realities call for.

Paul's advice is very naive. Confidence is frequently misinterpreted as an invitation to be attacked in its own right by thugs that are confident in their own ability or superior numbers. The best advice for dealing with these situations other than to avoid them is simply this: if you cannot get away safely, and know they are likely to attack you, strike as hard and fast as you can. Preferably, be the one to strike first and strike so hard that you make the thug(s) think they stumbled onto a stone-cold killer. Most civilized men don't realize how quickly they can be taken down without pain tolerance built up from proper training in how to fight.

I have to say, too, Paul, that I think your prescription for getting through neighborhoods safely isn't really getting at the scope and root of the problem I'm talking about here.

Nor was it meant to be. It was the set-up for a point about how streetmarts means making quick judgments based on limited information -- for instance, recognizing that a man covered in tattoos is far more likely to be a threat than a clean-cut one wearing a suit -- and that sort of thing is frowned upon by the PC enforcers.

Confidence is frequently misinterpreted as an invitation to be attacked in its own right

I made that point myself, Mike. I'll leave it to reader to judge whether confidence and alertness should be supplemented by a commitment to first-strike violence and the attitude of a "stone-cold killer." Certainly avoiding these situations is the best policy, but not always possible.

I'll leave it to reader to judge whether confidence and alertness should be supplemented by a commitment to first-strike violence and the attitude of a "stone-cold killer."

Commitment? You cannot derive that from what I said, which was that if you have reasonable grounds to believe you are about to be attacked in a hostile environment, you don't wait for the first blow nor do you respond proportionally. Not all self-defense is reactive, Paul. If three blacks approach you saying "we're going to kick your ass, white boy" it's safe to assume what their intentions are toward you.

We're talking about preparation and strategy. You sure came off as saying something much stronger than "evaluate each situation based on what information you have" or "discern teh intentions of the people around you." You talked about walking through a neighborhood (that was the context, not a specific confrontation with thugs) ready and committed to strike first.

I recommend avoiding walking through the neighborhood, if one can. Certainly not going about ready to strike first.

My own opinion is that it's to the point where a little paranoia, if one is fortunate enough to be able to afford to act on it ("Okay, I just won't go there or live there") is worth it on the "better safe than sorry" model. Whether one can get through _most_ neighborhood in _most_ cases safely or not just isn't enough anymore. That's become a matter of luck to a pretty frightening degree. There are so many horrible counterexamples of people who were just trying to live their lives and got pounded when there was nothing they could do about it, that insulting a few historic old buildings by thinking a neighborhood worse than it is should be the very least of our worries.

You talked about walking through a neighborhood (that was the context, not a specific confrontation with thugs) ready and committed to strike first.

Paul, go back and read my comment. My comment implies no such thing. There is no legitimate way to misinterpret it that way except to simply have skim read it. I explicitly said to first actively avoid such situations altogether and proceeded with the caveat of IFF you cannot get away, and can reasonably estimate their intent by their behavior, strike first.

Paul, I think possibly you came across in your original comment as more sanguine and upbeat than you actually are. Probably just a misunderstanding, but one I'm afraid I was subject to as well as Mike T. It was possible to interpret your initial comments as implying that things aren't really all that bad, that one shouldn't avoid neighborhoods (and especially shouldn't avoid them on grounds of racial makeup) because a) one could be misjudging based on cues like old buildings and b) if one just knows what one is doing, behaves with confidence, alertness, and street smarts, one will very, very probably be all right in almost any neighborhood in the country, except for the "very worst." Hence my responses above of instances that seem to run in the other direction. And that probably explains Mike T.'s use of the word "naive" as well. Again, probably just a misunderstanding.

Then why did you begin by calling my "confidence and alertness" remarks "very naive"?

I don't see how that has any bearing on my actual suggested tactics, but in answer to why I find it naive, it's because that only works against a certain psychology or with certain limited numbers. To paraphrase Marc Anton from HBO's Rome, even a pack of mangy dogs can take down a lion. It is best to actively avoid these situations, to flee from them when possible, and then if you are stuck dealing with someone who gives you a reasonable basis to believe they are planning to hurt you, to attack them first. No amount of confidence changes that. A confident man who lets someone he can reasonably assume is planning to hurt him have the first blow just might find that the first blow is a lot more dangerous, or even deadlier than he initially calculated.

I would also like to point out Paul, that if you find yourself in that situation, striking the first blow may give you a chance to spare their life by shocking them so badly they flee or giving you a decisive advantage.

Probably just a misunderstanding here, as Lydia says. I wanted to make the point that the type of street smart person most likely to pass through a bad neighborhood safely will do so, in part, on account of just those heuristic mental devices that are ruthlessly demonized by PC enforcers. Based on a paragraph that began "One problem is that streetsmart is praised in name, but assailed and undermined by ideology," Mike accused me of naivety and added some strident talk of first-strike necessity. I wasn't recommending that anyone go wandering around "transitional" neighborhoods testing their street smarts. I was pointing out that PC ideology makes street smarts disreputable.

Mike accused me of naivety and added some strident talk of first-strike necessity.

Wouldn't it just be easier to admit that you were very much misunderstood than to continue trying to accuse me of some sort of advocating something uncivilized when I took great pains to make it clear that you ought to take every honorable means necessary to avoid even the possibility of such a situation?

If that was your point, I can readily concede I misunderstood what you were trying to say, even if I disagree that overt displays of confidence do more than marginally reduce the risk of harm in a bad area.

Give the discussion's turn to street smarts, personal safety and walking around dangerous neighborhoods, I thought I would relate a couple of interesting ancedotes from my own life. Back when I was in graduate school at the U of C, I did some volunteer work in a public housing project (the residents were all black). I expressed some concern about my personal safety to the women I worked with (it was always women) and they told me that the last thing I had to worry about walking around the projects during the day as a white guy was being mugged or attacked -- the black gangs who controlled the drug trade would never stand for it because it would bring enormous pressure from the police and the last thing they wanted was enormous pressure. Whether that remains true today or not I have no idea.

Secondly, about four or five years ago I used to travel all over the city for my job, into some really bad neighborhoods (always during the day) and I never felt threatened or in danger even when I would come across groups of young black men who seemed to have nothing better to do than hang out on the street corner. Maybe it was because I was on official city business and was therefore confident in demeanor and attitude, or maybe I was just being foolish, but either way I never had a problem.

Now, that said, given today's heightened racial attitudes and tensions, I don't think I would feel as safe traveling around these same dangerous neighborhoods by myself. Chicago is not immune to the 'wilding' phenomenon and I don't want to end up on the 10 o'clock news.

Not last I heard, but that's one of the downsides of the national media blackout. Who would report it if there had been, and who is asking, "Why have there been no arrests yet?"

I don't want to attribute lassitude to the police. However the author of the American Thinker piece I linked in the main post definitely got the impression that the police are intimidated. He doesn't say what gave him that impression.

I never learned for sure whether Allen's sight was permanently damaged. Could injury to his sight be delaying the case? Again, if we had more assiduous journalism coverage on it, we'd be finding out.

Some provincial towns in England are still pretty safe - like the one where I live (which has no concentration of black people in any neighbourhood.) There is some rowdiness in the centre of town at weekends when the pubs empty, but I wouldn't feel at risk there. The police are seldom seen except racing to road accidents in their cars. I haven't seen one on foot patrol for years. I'd guess that most of the United States is just as safe.

About twenty years ago my wife and I got on a train from Fredericksburg to Washington DC. It was a Sunday evening and the train was packed with noisy black people - probably returning from a weekend visiting folks in the Carolinas and Georgia. We were the only whites in the carriage as far as I could tell, but we did not feel intimidated. Maybe our English accents were heard and nobody bothered us. Who knows?

I'd say it's because you're likely to get a somewhat different clientele on the VRE than on DC metro. Had you been on the DC metro green line 20 years ago, your accent might very well have made you even more likely to be a statistic.

The term "political correctness" was coined in the Soviet Union in the twenties. Political Correctness which is also incorporated in Catholic social justice teachings is a deracianation ideology; it is soft genocide. Lydia who uses the term "racist" in the marxist way is herself "politically correct" and she openly will monitor and delete comments that go against political correctness. I've heard Catholic priests and hierarchy denounce racism. They are also using political correctness.

So I don't know why you all cry. Violence always attends when there is proximity between the races. Segregation is the Natural Law. Many Catholics rejoiced and helped in the de-segregation of America.

Reap what you sow. Inherent in all race is the sense of belonging and volkenhass. The whole world is based on paradoxes. You can't have love without hate. As Jesus said, You can't serve two masters. Either you love your own and hate the other or you love the other and hate your own. That is the Natural Law.

The Catholic Church is just as much responsible for this situation than the liberals. The Catholic Church is into political correctness and not into the real original Natural Law.

I recall Jesus telling us to hate our mothers and fathers, wives, children and siblings. He also instructed us to love our enemies. As long as you're quoting Him out of context, you might want to at least consider the things He said that make nonsense of your argument.

First of all CJ, the quote I use comes from Matthew chapter 6. Your quote of "Jesus telling us to hate our mothers and fathers, wives, children and siblings." is NOWHERE in Chapter 6 of Matthew!

Here is the full quote.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 6:23-25

I am not quoting him out of context. That phrase can stand alone. The Natural Law principle is "The Rule of One is best". All things have an object of one. It is there in the institution of marriage: i.e. One husband loves ONE wife. The Rule of One is best. Love has only ONE object; it can not have multiple objects. You can NOT love God AND Mammon. You must either love God and hate mammon or Love Mammon and hate God----and this is the law of Nature or Natural Law---you can love both!

The same applies to race. You can NOT love both your kinfolk and the other. You can only love your kinfolk which is the virtue of righteousness and hate the other or love the other and hate your kinfolk. Love has One for its object. I'm not quoting out of context. Jesus Christ is teaching from the Natural Law.

First of all CJ, the quote I use comes from Matthew chapter 6. Your quote of "Jesus telling us to hate our mothers and fathers, wives, children and siblings." is NOWHERE in Chapter 6 of Matthew!

No, it isn't. It's Luke 14:26. There is more than one book in the Bible that contains Jesus' teachings.

I am not quoting him out of context. That phrase can stand alone. The Natural Law principle is "The Rule of One is best" [snip] Love has only ONE object; it can not have multiple objects.

If it can stand alone why did you need to add the unbiblical gloss about "the Rule of One is best?" Love can't have multiple objects? Jesus says you're wrong again:

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:31. But hey, it's not from Matthew 6, so maybe it doesn't count?

Yes, of course one can love those of other races as well as one's own.

I'm all in favor of self-defense when required. I'm a law and order hawk. And I'm all in favor of using all available information, including statistical information, to guide our behavior. I have counselled people in this very thread to be willing to avoid neighborhoods on a "safety first" principle that many would consider to be racist. I can only imagine how nuts the liberals would go if/when they read this post and thread.

However. No, it is complete baloney that you must hate people of other races to love your "own." And quoting Jesus to that effect is obscene.

Further comments to that effect will be deleted, and I will simply laugh if you think I'm "politically correct" for doing so.

Ms. Wheeler's statement above that a person cannot love without dispensing hatred somewhere, as if in some spiritual cosmic/personal balancing act, is perhaps the most ludicrous thought I have heard in some time. If true, then the love I feel for my wife, daughter, and brothers and other family members (dead and alive), and the general love I feel for...well, for a general beingness of life...then, if true about the love/hate balance, I need to look around to figure out just what it is I hate. Just to be balanced, you know. Right now, I'm not sure what it might be. In order to become a whole, balanced person, do I need to see a hate counseler to get this unrecognized hate resolved?

Excuse me, what? You're implying that the entire Allen Coon story never happened?

Wow. So I guess even the local news just faked up the story, huh? Just made it up out of whole cloth?

I guess Jesus mythers aren't the only crazy people around. Perhaps Allen Coon (and his mother, and Ashley Miller, and all the other named people) don't exist either. Maybe the American Thinker article author is really in cahoots with the local news article authors (despite the fact that he criticizes them) to pretend that any of these things happened at all and that he found all these people to interview when he went to check it out himself.

Of course not, Lydia. Black people are noble victims of white tyranny. Any story which has blacks committing hate crimes must be a fabrication because we all know blacks are incapable of racism or criminality. Obviously the white man made it up to justify his underlying mental pathologies.

I believe you've written about this case before. The appeals process hasn't gone well for the homeschooling family against the child protective services or the deputies who threatened to arrest them if they didn't allow a search without a warrant. So far, it's effectively illegal in the 9th circuit to use emotional coercion of a family to conduct an otherwise illegal search of a home courtesy of Arizona police and the clowns on the federal judiciary.

I noticed that the deputies belonged to Joe Arpaio's department which only serves as another reminder to me how "law and order" conservative often means "let the police do whatever they want" instead of "the rule of law must be upheld."

I couldn't find the actual post, but I thought you might like to know.

Reading through the posts, as a first-time visitor to this website I notice some rather egregious falsehoods being perpetuated without challenge.

First, no mainstream/liberal thinker has ever claimed that racism is confined to whites only. The notion is patently absurd.
I do note however that portraying one's own ethnic, political or religious group as the perpetual victim is almost always a prequel to some excuse for avoiding responsibility for any prior activities on your own part that may have resulted in the backlash of which its now claimed they are merely innocent victims of arbitrary violence directed at them.

And as if to underline the point, I soon saw whining about how poorly the Afrikaner minority was treated after Apartheid fell.

Uhhhmm.. I don't know how to put this other than -- ON WHAT PLANET do you suppose that if an indigenous, majority /white/ population, upon finally throwing off a half-century of brutal domination by a group of black-skinned foreigners, would then behave like Jesus Christ himself, forgiving the decades of rape and murder directed at your family and kinfolk?

FYI, the Afrikaner(Boer)tradition is one that sees their arrival in S. Africa as the fulfillment of Jehovah's promise to them (Dutch religious zealots whose own belief they were somehow a lost tribe of Israelites who then saw the native Africans the way the Bible instructs that Hebrews treat the Canaanites. Very, very poorly.

So can any of you honestly see these Afrikaners urging a policy of non-retribution and forgiveness of crimes (the way Mandela certainly did) should history have reversed their roles? I doubt it.

And before I go, a note to Wheeler. "Jesus said, You can't serve two masters. Either you love your own and hate the other or you love the other and hate your own."
If that's the case, then you tacitly admit the other race is also your "master". If they were merely equals (or lessers) then you wouldn't have to choose between them the way you say you are instructed regarding serving two masters. Your words. Your "logic".

I do note however that portraying one's own ethnic, political or religious group as the perpetual victim is almost always a prequel to some excuse for avoiding responsibility for any prior activities on your own part that may have resulted in the backlash of which its now claimed they are merely innocent victims of arbitrary violence directed at them.

As a Christian, I'm responsible for MY sins. Not those of dead white people.

I love my (white) children and don't want my (white) children beaten, lit on fire, discriminated against in college admissions, etc. I love them more than I love wallowing in white racial guilt.

I just now found the comments in this thread by GD Williams. I'm going to be editing and/or deleting some of them. But let me just put it this way: The idea that this is all a lie, that this did not happen, does not pass the laugh test. So the kid acted fast and put out the fire and didn't get seriously hurt in the end. Whoop-de. I guess the white victim has to _suffer_, maybe even be successfully killed, before the denialists won't deny what happened to him. Then they can just move on to plan 2, which is to ignore it. Or plan #3, which is even more disgusting, which is to start blathering about pushback and what whites as a group might have done to deserve this. When people get that deep into liberal denial _and while they're at it_ start blaming the victim on the basis of group guilt, I call that beyond the pale and start deleting. Mr. Williams, take that as a warning. And comments about an alleged "trailer-trash mother" are also disgusting. Stereotype much? Oh, that's right: Only when the stereotypes are allowed by liberalism. All of that _is_ anti-white racism, whether you realize it or not. And I've never prided myself on my tolerance, either to people like Wheeler, on one side, or people like you, on the other.

Lydia, when you prescribe boards to investigate anti-white racism in lieu of repealing non-discrimination and public accommodations laws, it seems like you're giving up the ghost on American liberty. Those "effective" programs have not been beneficial, but a form of psychological conditioning that makes people incapable of preserving and fostering the traditions of their ancestors. The joke about anti-racism is that while white people think that by cursing their ancestors they are soul searching, it's really a form of impiety and something akin to the sin of Ham. Such people really are only fit for slavery.

Well, I wasn't necessarily prescribing those "in lieu of" repealing non-discrimination laws. My opinion would be that the two are at least analytically separable. It would be possible to have such investigative boards without repealing those laws.

I've given my opinion on such laws in numerous threads and can't remember if I've given them here in this thread. In brief, we would in a number of ways have been better off if they hadn't been passed. Now that they are here, however, and not going away (at least the racial and gender ones aren't going away; there's still some possibility of getting rid of the pro-sodomite ones), it isn't illegitimate to try to challenge and stop the blatantly selective use of them. So, for example, I think it's perfectly legitimate for Christians to bring anti-discrimination lawsuits when an employer has discriminated against them because of their Christianity. And the same for whites.

I also support (after initially being skeptical about) the Michigan Civil Rights Initiave in my own state. What the MCRI basically said was, "You can't have racially discriminatory or gender discriminatory affirmative action programs." It tried to put in place the notion that reverse discrimination is illegal. I don't know how much of a difference it's made statewide. I'm sure there's a huge amount of turning a blind eye. But I do know that individual people have been able to use it to stand up to college administrators and colleagues who want them to continue using affirmative action as if the MCRI had never been passed. It really makes the diversity police blink to say, "Actually, perhaps you didn't know this, Dr. So-and-so, but what you're proposing we do is illegal here in Michigan." For people who don't want to engage in anti-male or anti-white discrimination, it's a pretty powerful weapon. So I've come to favor it even though it was a restatement of non-discrimination laws in its own way.

I think it's a purple state. Neither all red nor all blue. We also passed, by popular vote, a very strong marriage protection constitutional amendment.

These were maybe 8-10 years ago. I don't know if it wd. be possible now. But let's just say well within living memory.

The funny thing is, I think the MCRI was made stronger by the actual ballot language which expressly mentioned prohibiting "affirmative action programs that discriminate on the basis of..." etc. Yet I knew one lobbyist for the MCRI, a guy who absolutely devoted himself to it and probably risked his life in the process, because the BAMN goons were out in full force, who opposed that ballot language! He thought it would put people off and was unnecessary to include the phrase "affirmative action programs," because _good_ affirmative action programs are really just advertising widely, etc. It was amazing that he actually thought that. In my opinion if there's ever a legal challenge on the meaning of the MCRI, that ballot language will be crucial evidence, so I'm definitely glad it went the way it did.

Lydia, thanks for the response.
Perhaps I was just misinterpreting your original post, but when you mentioned instituting programs to counter anti-white sentiments, words, and actions, I had a grotesque vision of some William Donahue of the White Man being given special powers to lecture transgressors on the proper attitude to have towards White folk, how they may be addressed, spoken of and treated.

Well, you have to admit: That would be kind of funny. Let's put it this way. We've had so much of the other thing. Would it really hurt if teachers were required to undergo a little reverse discrimination sensitivity training to combat the scourge of anti-white racism and to be taught that they should chide such talk and expressions in their students rather than encouraging them?

Thanks, Mike T., that looks like it must be the same case. But here's something weird. It says that the perp. made threats on April 15, telling the victim he would hit him if he didn't let him set him on fire. Coons was burned at least as early as March. Does this mean there was another attempted incident on April 15, and this is how they caught the perp?

Hmm. Maybe "April" is a typo and should have been "March"? But the boy's name has been in the news since it happened, so why withhold it here? And why not even mention there was a second attacker? I've been trying to find out if there was a second (copycat?) incident, but my search skills are rather poor on the web . . .

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